Next Generation of School Security Software Evolving at Lightning Speed

How geofencing, data
analytics, and more are making our schools safer

Mike McCarty

By Mike McCarty, Founder & CEO of Safe Hiring Solutions

It is unfortunate
that our schools are on such high alert that they have to monitor and enhance
their security to keep students, teachers, and administrators safe.

School security has
become a top concern for all given the prevalence of violence and threats of
violence in schools of all grades.

According to
Education Week, in 2019 there were 14
school shootings ending in 23 people killed or injured. In 2018, there were 24
school shootings with 114 people killed or injured.

As more tragedies
occur, the demand for the most comprehensive and robust school security technology
is rising.

Thankfully,
technology provided by Safe
Hiring Solutions provides the best
approach to managing this challenge effectively in a variety of places, schools
included.

Visitor Management

SafeVisitor, an extension of Safe Hiring
Solutions, is a leading visitor management system in the United States that is
fully integrated with a background screening provider to offer a complete suite
of background screening solutions for all visitors, volunteers, and vendors.

Systems like this
empower accuracy by ensuring the timeliest responsiveness possible and seamless
integration with law enforcement.

The school
visitor management system may begin at the front door but permeates the entire
building, providing a seamless dashboard that creates full and restricted
access levels only to certain areas, while also alerting security and law
enforcement.

A more
sophisticated visitor management system starts at the sign-in process, where
registrations should be integrated with a national criminal database and a
background screening system that is preferably a police level background check.

It is also possible
to activate your companies own exclusion list to this process as well.

Visitor identity
checks should not only include government issued identifications that are
scanned, but also biometric technology for additional authentication that includes
fingerprinting, recognition of palms and faces, scanners for concealed and
exposed weapons, and reporting.

Geofencing

Then, there is
real time visitor tracking so you always know where someone is.

Yes, geofencing is a great marketing tool, but it can also
be a lifesaving one.

Geofencing is a
great tool for monitoring arrivals of both volunteers, vendors, or even
employees.

Today, many schools and workplaces are now using
geofencing to set parameters around their school buildings, campus, and parking
lots school buildings, parking lots to create virtual boundaries.

Paired with Safe Hiring Solutions technology, you can let
internal security or law enforcement know of an emergency situation. If you’re
in a situation where you can’t talk, you can still share your location and be
found quickly.

This tool enables
the school resource officers to move freely about a facility without having to
check in at every location.

Additional
elements that include real-time arrest alerts, geofencing, and the ability to
alert internal security and law enforcement within seconds, are also key
factors to determine how advanced the visitor management system is.

Real Time Arrest Alerts

ArrestAlert is a new solution that changes all the rules in background
screening.

Safe Hiring
Solutions integration with more than 80% of the jails in the U.S. allows you to
find criminal history outside areas in which a candidate or employee has lived
or worked.

It also offers
real-time monitoring that can reduce the cost of re-checks and provide alerts
that can be acted upon immediately by ensuring that an employee, volunteer, or
vendor who is arrested of a violent offense is uncovered immediately rather
than waiting on the annual re-check.

Alert Internal Security and Law Enforcement

SafeVisitor has
an Excluded Parties flag that can be used with people who have made threats
against a school, protective orders, policy issues or sex offenders trying to
gain access to children.

Schools can also
use this technology to flag when a student who has been expelled or suspended
tries to gain access to school. The “Denied Entry” trigger will send a text
and/or email to security, administrators or whomever you designate.

Safe Hiring
Solutions integrates with top in class security solutions to provide real-time
alert notifications that can be sent directly to law enforcement.

We know from
research and mass active shooting events like Parkland that seconds
matter.

Waiting for
someone to make a 911 call, then have it processed and pushed to law
enforcement can take minutes. Minutes can be an eternity in a mass shooting
event.

But what about
the people already at the schools?

Students

It’s also
important to have security partners.

For example, Safe
Hiring Solutions has an integration that provides law enforcement alert
systems, incident reporting, anonymous texting, and license plate reading
technology to alert security when an expelled or suspended student comes on
property.

Staff

Hiring the right
staff is key.

The systems for
schools are not only software based, but also leverage proprietary hardware
that has been created by only a few of the best in the industry.

Despite advances
in technology, there remain challenges that include a lack of awareness that
these systems even exist for schools, varying state laws, budget constraints,
and a lack of infrastructure to support new technology.

Today, students
and parents are demanding school administrators do everything they can toprevent
future shootings like the ones in
Parkland, Florida, Santa Fe, Texas, and Newtown, Connecticut.

School Security Software in Action

One school that
will kick off the 2019-2020 school year with some of this technology, is
Florida’s Hillsborough County school district.

The district, in
and around Tampa, will be utilizing visitor location tracking, SafeVisitor – Safe Hiring Solutions proprietary visitor management system to
identify all visiting parties and to conduct a National Sex Offender registry
check, and volunteer background checks with an arrest alert for 50,000
volunteers.

It’s ultimately
up to the schools to implement systems that will keep people safe on
campus.

While visitor
management technology is still evolving and is not 100% preventative, it is the
best measure available today to keep our schools safe.

Every second
counts and this technology is one solution we have at our fingertips to ensure
school safety.

For more on how
you can implement school security software and systems,click here.